Hearts and Arrows?

[window98]

Hi Everyone,
I''m new here and I was wondering on how everyone felt about Hearts and Arrows diamonds. Does it visibly have more brilliance, fire, and scintillation than a regular ideal cut diamond? I don''t care about looking at the hearts and arrows through a scope, I''m just concerned with what everyone will see once it''s on the setting and on her finger. Thanks!

 

[pqcollectibles]

Diamonds have individual personalities and appeal to different people in different ways.

I went and looked at H&A's and Ideal CUTS in person. For me, the H&A's had a WOW factor that called to me more than the Ideal CUTS I saw. Other folk may not see it the same way.

Just my $0.02 worth!

 

[Caratz]

----------------
On 11/13/2003 11:17:36 PM wondo99 wrote:

Hi Everyone,
I'm new here and I was wondering on how everyone felt about Hearts and Arrows diamonds. Does it visibly have more brilliance, fire, and scintillation than a regular ideal cut diamond? I don't care about looking at the hearts and arrows through a scope, I'm just concerned with what everyone will see once it's on the setting and on her finger. Thanks!

----------------

Yes and no. Strictly speaking, the H&A features themselves do not cause more brilliance, fire, and scintillation than a regular ideal cut diamond. The nicest thing about H&A is the perfect symmetry, which has a beauty all its own. Strictly speaking, light return and symmetry are apples and oranges.

However, a cutter aiming for H&A is more likely to be concerned about light return and how the stone will look under a firescope, and will make an extra effort to minimize light leakage. A cutter merely aiming for AGS 0 is more concerned about getting the stone within the AGS parameters than how the stone actually looks under the fire scope, and for that reason some AGS 0 leak more light that they should.

If you are more concerned about light return than you are perfect symmetry, you should probably get yourself an idealscope.

 

[magna2]

H&A pattern will not guarantee that the diamond will perform better than a well cut non-H&A diamond. It all comes down to the relationship/interplay of the facets.

Since you do not care for viewing the diamond under a H&A scope, save yourself the premium and get a well cut ideal cut diamond instead.

 

[Arlington]

I can answer this as a consumer who has purchased an H&A, not as an expert. I bought an A Cut Above diamond from Whiteflash for my now-Fiancee. The H&A pattern itself is worthless and unimportant to me...it could have been a kidneys-and-smileyfaces pattern for all I care. Once it is set you can't see the hearts anyway! What did matter to me was that the H&A pattern is a byproduct of having an exacting symmetry. In my non-expert opinion, having a very well-proportioned diamond along with perfect symmetry is the "perfect storm" of diamond cutting.

Once the ring was given, I explained to my girlfriend that it was a Hearts and Arrows diamond, and even showed her the H&A images taken of the diamond before the ring was mounted. She barely even noticed, probably because she was so mesmerized by the fire and brilliance of the ring sitting in front of her. I mean it, she's been wearing it around for over a week now and it still shocks both of us how incredibly beautiful and "sparkly" it is.

 

[Hest88]

If you get a H&As diamond, you will be getting a nice performing diamond. There's no guarantee that it will perform better than another ideal-cut, but you are certainly not going to get a dud.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Hi,

I second what Hest said and wanted to add that recently, I compared a H&A to my current extremely well cut ideal diamond and found that my diamond, even when needing a cleaning, performed equally to a H&A. Actually, I was amazed that it looked as good, but proud too since my husband and I bought my ring nine years ago with NO diamond knowledge!

H&As ARE gorgeous, but there are other stones out there just as pretty. I think you really need to go and look in person and judge for yourself. . . but be sure the ideal cut is really ideal. Not all ideals are the same.

Michelle

 

[niceice]

The absence or presence of a crisp and complete Hearts & Arrows pattern does not affect the brilliance, dispersion or scintillation of a diamond. In fact, assuming that two ideal cut diamonds are cut equally, the odds are that we won't be able to separate them without the use of special scopes like a Gems Fantasy Scope or a SymmetriScope (Fire Scope, Light Scope, whatever you want to call it)... Several years ago, Hearts & Arrows Ideal Cut Diamonds were about the only way to obtain a balance of brilliance and dispersion in an ideal cut diamond simply because they were cut to a tighter combination of angles than standard ideal cut diamonds... When the H&A diamonds were introduced to the U.S. Market the demand for standard ideal cut diamonds went down because of the difference in light return, as a result the producers of the standard ideal cut diamond tightened their cutting parameters and today the two diamonds look the same side-by-side under normal viewing conditions... We select diamonds for our inventory upon its' proportions, not the internal pattern of Hearts & Arrows and suggest that you do the same... Here is a combination of proportions that will make your selection easier, try to keep the measurements of the diamond within the following range:

Total depth under 61.8%
Table diameter between 53 - 57%
Crown angle between 34.3 - 34.8 degrees
Pavilion angle between 40.6 - 40.9 degrees
Girdle: 0.7% thin up to 1.8% medium, preferably faceted.
Culet: AGS pointed or GIA none
Polish: AGS Ideal or GIA Excellent
Symmetry: AGS Ideal or GIA Excellent

Other combinations of proportions will work, but they are not as predictable. For instance, a crown angle of 33.9 degrees works fairly well with a pavilion angle of 41.1 degrees MOST of the time... But it definitely won't result in a nice H&A pattern - too shallow of a crown, it will result in distortion.

 

[Chas!]

Yes I think H&A looks more like a diamond should be. which is a consistant pattern of(h&a's)you can see it from the naked eye and it's very brilliant and attractive loking. It's definitly worth the extra few bucks. Your girl will have people saying WOW for sure.

 

[canadiangrrl]

I have seen AGS0's and AGS0 H&A's side by side, and I couldn't tell the difference between the two. Most well cut RB's will exhibit some type of H&A pattern. My stone was not sold to us as H&A, but it does have excellent arrows & overall symmetry. The hearts are meaningless to me, because you can't see them once the stone is mounted anyway.

Proportions are what count when it comes to light return - they're what deliver the "wow" factor.